American Football

[jyoung]

A couple of news bits:

• BCFX was supposed to come out this week but got delayed until after Madden, with a tentative release date of August 25.
  
  
• There's a Madden 10 demo coming out on this Thursday, the 23rd at 9 PM featuring a full game of Steelers/Cardinals with 5 minute quarters. You can get a code for this demo by preordering the game at Gamestop. I just ordered mine online and then I'm probably going to cancel the preorder after I get the demo downloaded.
  

[Advocate]

Or you could cancel the preorder now and get the demo seven days later on the 360. With two more teams.

Microsoft are at it again, this time working out some kind of deal with EA Sports that will see the public demo (not the preorder demo) for Madden 10 released a week early on Xbox Live.

While PS3 owners and Xbox Live Silver subscribers will be able to download a demo of the Giants v Cowboys on July 30, if you're an Xbox Live Gold subscriber, you can get it on July 23. A whole seven days early, and the same day the GameStop demo - featuring the Steelers v Cardinals - is released.

[jyoung]

Catch is, the "normal" demo with Cowboys and Giants only has 1 minute quarters (!!! that's got to be a record low), so you'll hardly be able to get a feel for the game that way.

5 minute quarters is basically a full game (I think that's the default setting in most football games these days), so I think it's worth the extra trouble for the Gamestop one.

[Advocate]

It's Madden. It will suck no matter what.

[jyoung]

Probably, but I try the demos every year anyway just to see where it's at.

I actually liked last year's enough to rent it, but it ultimately fell apart after a few days of testing it out.

To EA's credit, they do seem to have made a lot of improvements this year judging by the videos that are rolling around online.

[gamevet]

I'm buying Madden and I'm sure I'll be disappointed with it as always. The NCAA games have sucked even worse.

[kingoffighters]

Every year, I wait until January when the game drops to $10.

[gamevet]

I'd sold Madden 09 about 5 months ago and got back $35 of what I'd wasted on purchasing the game new.

[jyoung]

Both of the Madden 10 demos are up now and ready to download.

[jyoung]

After a couple games of the demo, I think it's safe to say that as cool as the presentation improvements are in Madden 10, the gameplay here is still the same old Madden, which means bad AI, robotic animations, wonky physics and suction blocking rule the day.

All Pro Tak seems to have done is brought on the addition of suction tackling, as weight and inertia just seem to get completely ignored anytime a Pro Tak moment happens.

I'm interested enough in the demo to give this a rent, but I doubt I'll buy it.